4+ day, 21+ hour ago   (1066+ words) In a small museum in northern Azerbaijan sit two objects that tell a surprisingly long story. They are a pair of tefillin so tiny that the black boxes are barely a centimeter wide. During the Soviet era, when openly observing…...

3+ week, 4+ day ago   (673+ words) Decades ago, when I was in my 20s, I published a book of short essays. The final one was titled “The Beauty of Anti-Semitism.” That provocative phrase was meant to embody the idea that Jew-hatred is just so varied in the…...

3+ week, 4+ day ago   (750+ words) The author wrote this in 1995, after visiting Israel with his wife and children — ages 13, 10 and 6. It is excerpted from a piece originally published in the Long Island Jewish World, where the author penned a column for many years. He is…...

3+ week, 4+ day ago   (675+ words) We are roughly at the halfway point in sefer Devarim, about to complete this Shabbat the sixth parsha, Ki Tetzei, with five more to go. It is noteworthy that four of the first five parshiyot of Devarim explicitly contain the…...

3+ week, 4+ day ago   (797+ words) Israel is the best long-term investment a Jew can make, not only financially, but morally, strategically and spiritually, Rabbi Leo Dee argues in his new book. “The goal of this book is not merely to build a business case for…...

3+ week, 4+ day ago   (734+ words) As you may have read last week, a group of rabbis recently met with Mayor Zohran Mamdani. While City Hall did not release an official list, JNS reported that there were nine rabbis and one lay leader present (she represents…...